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Sunday, September 24, 2017

While waiting in my wife’s doctor’s
office the other day, I picked up a FREE magazine, “WebMDdiabetes, at Walgreens.” I’ve been a type 2 for 31 years, and treating
it as a dietary disease for 15, so I didn’t expect that the magazine would have
much to offer me, but…was I in for a surprise! It was loaded with material for my blog!

The featured article was “Savor
Summer,” with a recipe section: The subtitle was “New ways to bring sweet corn to your table” (my
emphasis). But to a carboholic, the added emphasis is unnecessary. The brain
sees “sweet” and translates it to “SWEET.” And the food photography was great! Really mouth
watering stuff!

“You can almost taste sunshine when
you bite into a freshly picked ear of corn,” the article begins, adding, “It’s
also nutritious” because it’s “chockful of Carotenoids.” (No mention of sugar.)
But then,
unabashed, it says, “It’s also a starchy
vegetable, easily rounding out your plate with more fiber than a refined
grain.” Okay, so it’s not a refined
grain. That’s good. But corn is starch.
It ispure sugar and starch. For a diabetic, that’s just as bad as a refined grain. The sugar alone
is 62% glucose (the rest is fructose)
and the starch is100%
glucose.

And if that wasn’t enough, 2 of the
3 corn recipes added honey! Added honey, for diabetics! As if corn
wasn’t sweet enough! The recipes had all been reviewed by the WebMD medical
editor, an MD, and she could do it with a clear conscience because, by the U. S. Dietary Guidelines “MY PLATE,
a healthy meal plan for everyone, even diabetics, – includes ¼
starches. Corn certainly fills the bill. But should a magazine for
diabetics, intended to help both type 2 diabetics and pre-diabetics make
healthy food choices, suggest and feature recipes
that willassure that the pre-diabetic progress to diabetic and the
diabetic remains in a diseased state? C’mon!

Why would the medical community and Big Pharma
encourage people who have “presented” with evidence of Insulin Resistance, which equates to Carbohydrate Intolerance, suggest, recommend, and
even encourage people to eat a diet
comprised three-quarters of carbohydrate (¼ starch and ½ non-starchy
vegetables)? Why? One size fits all!!! For 37 years the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” have ordained
that one-size-fits-all. The Guidelines have gone through various iterations,
from various food pyramids to today’s “My Plate,” but they all have one thing in common: by following them, you,
the diabetic, most assuredlywill get sicker and sicker.

Who benefits from this whack-a-mole
recommendation? I know, I know. It’s easy to conclude it’s the doctor’s and the
pharmaceutical industry, including retailers like Walgreens. And they certainly
do benefit. We all get sick, and they take care of us. But that’s their
business. They’re just doing what they are in business to do. Altogether, the
23 page Diabetes magazine included 4 pages of corn recipes, 8 pages of other
content, and 11 pages of ads, 4 for Walgreens products and 4 for diabetes meds
from Lilly and Pfizer, available at Walgreens.

But that’s not where the problem
lies. It originated forty years ago when the U. S. government got into the nutrition
business. In 1977 a U. S Senate select committee convened and held hearings.
So-called “experts” testified. Later, the lay staff of the Committee produced
the “Dietary Goals for the United States.” In 1980,
and every five years after, HHS has produced the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” It’s been a disaster.

The
Nutrition Coalition has proposed that the Guidelines be reformed.
They say, “Americans have followed the Guidelines, but their health has not
improved.” “The Guidelines have not always provided the best dietary advice.”
“The science is not settled and in some cases has been reversed,” and “(T)he
process of drafting the Guidelines needs reform.” I certainly agree. I have
signed their petition and ask you to consider adding
your name to the growing community of people like us who are in-the-know. We
need Guidelines based on sound scientific evidence. And there will still be
plenty of ways in which WebMD and Walgreens can collaborate. And then my wife’s
doctor won’t have the shame of having
this awful magazine in his waiting
room.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

I haven’t written about supplements
since…wow! I just did a search of almost 400 posts and discovered I have NEVER
written about my supplements. I guess it’s because I consider it
personal, not in the sense of private – I am transparent about my health – but
in the sense of “individualized.” I think it is also because I have read so
much about how none of them are
necessary or even helpful, like I’ve just been duped or sold a bill of goods.

So, why do I take supplements when
there’s no real way to prove that they have helped me? A well designed experiment is
impossible; there are just way too
many confounding factors. I guess the best answer is that they are “insurance;”
besides, most of them are vestigial, that is, I began them before I was initiated in the ways – or the concept anyway – of eating a low carb diet of whole, real food…and
I just continued with them. That’s my construct anyway. Besides, some of them I
do believe in. So, which would I
eliminate and why?

I am prompted to write about this
now by a presentation made at Keto Fest in New London, CT last July by podcast
meister Ivor
Cummins, the “Fat Emperor.” Near the end – maybe his very last
sentence – as though it were a hurried, throwaway line, he said: “Don’t forget
to take supplemental magnesium and potassium.” No time for an explanation. It
was just a given, likeeveryoneknew! Fortunately, I do
take them both.

Here’s a
complete list of my current supplements. Bear in mind, I am/have been a Type 2
Diabetic for 31 years and eat a Very Low Carb (VLC) or LCHF (Low-Carb,
High-Fat) or Ketogenic Diet, with frequent full-day fasting.

With COFFEE with HEAVY CREAM and
POWDERED STEVIA, early in the MORNING

Possible additions: 1) a
small (250mg) Vitamin C tablet with supper, to help with protein uptake, and a
calcium supplement, to help with magnesium uptake. First I need to learn more
about their interactions.

My labs are very
good. My last A1c was 5.2%. My Vitamin D and B12 are high and very high
respectively. My TC is below 200mg, my HDL-C is averages about 80, my LDL-C
averages about 100 and my TGs still average around 50, even though I don’t eat
a can of sardines for lunch any more. When I do eat lunch, I prefer a can of
kippered herring in brine. It’s fewer calories and much less fat, and I’m
trying to burn endogenous fat, notexogenous
fat! My fasting intake is about
300kcal/day and my feasting intake
paradigm is still about 1,200 (15g carbs, 60g protein and 100g fat, mostly
saturated/monounsaturated). Finally, my inflammation markers are very low. Now that I have laid it out
for everyone to see, what do you think? I invite comments.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

If an A1c of ≥6.5% is defined as
diabetic, and the goal of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) is to manage
your blood sugar such that it does not exceed 7.0%, then it follows ipso facto that the ADA’s guideline to MDs is to maintain you, if you are a type 2
diabetic, in aperpetual
disease state. What do you think about that?

Two explanations are possible. I’m
not so cynical that I would buy into the easy one: that your doctor, and the
health care world that comprises about 1/6th of the entire U. S.
economy, needs to keep you sick for them to prosper. I understand why it’s easy
to go there, but I really don’t think there is such a sinister conspiracy.
There has to be another, probably much more complex and difficult, explanation
for this conundrum.

The other explanation for the low
expectation (≤7.0%) of the healthcare community is that, in their clinical
experience, it is difficult under the terms of the ADA’s Standards of Medical Care to achieve the
“reasonable goal” of an A1c of ≤7.0%, even
with all the pharmaceutical options, both oral and injected, that are and
come on the market. Big Pharma has expended vast resources over the last half century
to manage type 2s health.

Insulin, discovered in 1921, can
achieve that goal, but most patients do not want to inject themselves multiple
times a day while monitoring and counting everything they eat to maintain
“tight control.” Besides, the ADA and most clinicians do not advocate or
practice it because there are serious dangers in some situations (coma and
death).They are content to let their
diabetic patients remain in a perpetual disease state rather than risk
having them pass out and be transported to the hospital with life threatening
hypoglycemia or ketoacidosis.

The confounding and mitigating
factors for the terms of the ADA’s “Standards of Medical Care” include the American Heart Association (AHA), starting in
the 50s, and the U.S. public health establishment, including foremost, beginning in 1977, Government
Dictocrats. In that year the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human
Needs, aka “the McGovern Commission” produced the “Dietary Goals for the United States.”

Starting in 1980 it was followed
every 5 years by the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” to
“govern” what we eat. We followed it, the food manufacturers followed it, and
so did the media and medical associations. We ate low fat, low cholesterol, low
salt, lean meats, and low-fat cheese and yogurt. A mostly plant based diet.

Simultaneously starting in 1980, we
got sicker and fatter and started to develop insulin resistance and type 2
diabetes at increasing rates. A little of this reflects an aging population,
but this cannot explain the soaring rates of childhood diabetes. And just look
around you on the street, or maybe in a mirror.

The
“ship of State,” however, has begun to change course. In 2015 the Guidelines
dropped the limit (30%) on total fat and the limit on dietary cholesterol
(300mg/day). Eggs and butter, even bacon, are healthy again. Margarine, made
from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats) is taboo.

But
these little known changes, while really significant – seminal, really – are in
themselves not sufficient for the type 2 diabetic to reverse his or her disease
state and achieve an A1c of less than 6.5% much less the 5.7%, threshold
for a diagnosis of pre-diabetes. To reach this goal, or lower, the pre-diabetic
needs to change the foods they eat.
They need to limit carbohydrates, and not eat the same, one-size-fits-all diet
that the government still insists everyone
should eat. They need to follow a Low-carb, High-fat (LCHF) Way of Eating.

When you start to eat
Low Carb, you will feel better. You blood sugar will stabilize. You will feel
less tired and less hungry. You will lose weight. And your A1c will come down.
I’ve been a diagnosed type 2 for 31 years and have been eating LCHF for 15. On
LCHF I’ve lost 180 pounds and my A1c has gone from 8.9% to 5.2%. With no CVD.
It’s still a challenge, but if I hadn’t made this lifestyle change, I wouldn’t
be here today to write about it.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

An acquaintance called me recently
to say she had been talking to a mutual friend who had said that I had helped
her lose 30 pounds (and 2 bra sizes!), by eating low carb. LOL. She (the
acquaintance) wanted to know how to do it? Well, my friend suggested, she
should call me and ask. So, she did, and I was glad to help.

I am always pleased when my
low-carb, moderate-protein, high, healthy-fat message is heeded. I offered to
lend her my favorite books to learn the physiology of low carb eating,
suggested the best websites for a neophyte to visit, and offered to mentor her,
answering any question she had, as I had for our mutual friend.

It turns out that the acquaintance
– let’s call her Pam – is a very busy woman and doesn’t have time to learn
about the science. She just wants to know what to eat, and what not to eat.
Apparently Pam had read that I had lost 60 pounds in 9 months 15 years ago, by
following “Atkins Induction” (20 grams of carbs/day). Then, a few years later I
had lost another 110 pounds following Dr. Richard K. Bernstein’s “6-12-12
Program,” in which you eat just 30 grams of carbohydrate a day. For some
reason, Pam decided she wanted to try Bernstein.

So, I loaned her Bernstein’s “The
Diabetes Diet” and his encyclopedic “Diabetes Solution.” I also told her I had
recently become an acolyte of Dr. Jason Fung, fasting advocate and author of
“The Obesity Code,” about Intermittent and full-day fasting. I had unsuccessfully tried 16-8 for about a
year, in which I ate basically just one meal a day, or a small lunch and then
supper within an 8 hour window, thus fasting 16 hours a day.

More recently, because I eat Very
Low Carb and am therefore FAT-ADAPTED, I transitioned to full-day fasting. So
far I have lost about 50 pounds since early February. Concerned that I would be
hungry or lacking in energy, I started off with alternate day fasts (Tuesday
and Thursday). But because I am FAT-ADAPTED, I was neither hungry nor lacking in
energy. My body transitioned easily from fed to fasting states, using glucose
from the fed state and then fatty acids from body fat and ketone bodies, the
by-products of fatty acid breakdown, for brain food during the fasting state.
Because of that smooth and natural transition, my metabolism continued to run
at full speed. In fact, my sense is that I am actually more “pumped,” more
energized, in my fasting state.

I then described what I put in my
mouth on my 300 kcal/day Fasting Regimen: Coffee with heavy cream for
“breakfast” and a wine spritzer at the supper hour. Pam asked, “Don’t you drink
more water during the day?” I said, “Only if I am dehydrated from working
outside on a hot day.” “You should, you know,” she admonished. I said, “I also
drink some brine from the pickle jar” (to maintain my electrolyte balance). Pam
was apoplectic.

In a later email exchange, I told
Pam that she would have to cut way back on fruit to eat Low Carb. To eat Very
Low Carb, she’d have to virtually eliminate fruit. Fruit is basically just
sugar. Fruit juice is worse. It’s nature’s candy. Pam replied she had a
serious problem with constipation and didn’t want to give up fruit on that
account. I replied that that was a rationale that I did not understand, but she
didn’t explain how they were associated. I suggested it was an irrational
justification, a rationalization, if you will. The subject was dropped.

I then suggested taking magnesium
as a mild laxative and sleep aid. Most older adults are deficient in magnesium
and should probably take a supplement. Pam then said she currently takes 400mg
a day and her cardiologist doesn’t want her to take more. Her cardiologist!
That’s new information to me. I replied that I take a full gram a day: 400mg
morning and night plus 200mg in a multivitamin. And I had
never experienced constipation on a Very Low Carb diet, even before I added a
magnesium supplement morning and night.

Finally, I suggested
increasing her fat consumption to ease her bowels. She said, “Thank you” and
signed off. I guess she, and maybe her cardiologist, think the US Dietary
Guidelines still limit dietary fat to 30%, or worse, cause CVD. Not true!
Change is a slow process, starting with curiosity and intrigue, with a lot of
resistance throughout. Sometimes intransigence shuts down the process
completely. “Intransigent Resistance” (IR).

About Me

I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic in 1986. I started a Very Low Carb diet (Atkins Induction) in 2002 to lose weight. I didn’t realize at the time that it would put my diabetes in clinical remission, or that I would be able to give up almost all of my oral diabetes meds. I also didn’t understand that, as I lost weight and continued to eat Very Low Carb, my blood lipids would dramatically improve (doubling my HDL and cutting my triglycerides by 2/3rds) and that my blood pressure would drop from 130/90 to 110/70 on the same meds.
Over the years I changed from Atkins to the Bernstein Diet (designed for diabetics) and, altogether lost 170 pounds. I later regained some and then lost some. As long as I eat Very Low Carb, I am not hungry and I have lots of energy. And I no longer have any of the indications of Metabolic Syndrome.
My goal, as long as I have excess body fat, is to remain continuously in a ketogenic state, both for blood glucose regulation and continued weight loss. I expect that this regimen will continue to provide the benefits of reduced systemic inflammation, improved blood lipids and lower blood pressure as well.